Playdemic: UK needs to push "aggressively" into new markets

New RockYou acquisition: Lack of major UK social/mobile devs is "a shame"

Paul Gouge, general manager of Manchester studio Playdemic, has shed more light on the thinking which led to the firm's recent acquisition by US social game giant RockYou.

In an interview with GamesIndustry.biz published today, Gouge claimed that "We're very excited to be part of a large US parent company but equally, it's a shame that there aren't any big UK-owned businesses in this space. That needs to improve in the UK.

"The most successful was Playfish and it was an early mover in the market - operating out of London but now very much a part of Electronic Arts.

"What we've seen in the States and in silicon valley in this industry has a very clear, aggressive and well-funded ambition to be world leaders in a new marketplace."

By contrast, he felt that "In the UK, historically, whilst we're very strong creatively, we haven't always been leaders when it comes to commercial opportunities that have been presented in the marketplace.

"The UK's great when it comes to game making but we don't necessarily have the secret sauce to be aggressively pushing these new market trends. Certain players in the UK need to be more focused on that."

RockYou senior VP Jonathan Knight also hinted at the newly-grown firm's ambitions for the coming years, claiming it would move beyond Facebook titles.

While he predicted that social games would not "evolve as rapidly as some of the dedicated gaming platforms over the last couple of decades," he did feel that "smartphones and tablets... can't be ignored as a really important platform for social gaming. It's an unstoppable trend.

"The other thing is that so many games are only available in English and that's something that's clearly going to change."